Unusual disaster at sea? Yep, that will be news!

... especially given that there was allegedly a crime involved.

CNN reports numerous illegal and unethical actions by the captain, for example:

Five more bodies found in cruise ship wreckage

The grim discoveries bring to at least 11 the number of people killed after the Concordia ran aground off Giglio, Italy. FULL STORY

• Captain was told: Get back to your ship
• Ship's captain to say jailed for now
• Disaster frightens cruisers
• Best videos   | Deadly turn  
• Hole blasted   | Infrared images  
• 'We've abandoned it'   | Survivors  

___________________________________________________________ 

The story is also being covered on Fox, along with this one:

Police: Mom Shot Kids, Dad After Making Drug Video

Police say woman videotaped herself smoking meth before killing her two kids, their father, a cousin and herself

• 10-Year-Old Boy Suspected of Fatally Stabbing Friend
• New Details Emerge in Case of Missing Montana Teacher

___________________________________________________________

You see the pattern? Random. Violent. Deadly. Unusual.

Linkage!

Browsing the news this morning and this jumped out at me.

Girl taunted by neighbor dies at age 9

Kathleen Edward was thrust into the national spotlight over startling images posted online. » Succumbs to disease

• Teen dies after gym class
• Work bully victims struggle
• Principal hypnosis charge

See what the news media did here?

They took one story about a young girl who died after being taunted or bullied. Then they found another, unrelated story about a teen who died, a different bully victim, and something about a principal, AND THEY CONNECTED THEM ALL TOGETHER even though are in no way connected.

That is linkage and it is how we come to see problems in society as bigger than they really are.

The stories about a woman, her dog, and a man with another dog

So I was reading a nearby newspaper yesterday and two, side-by side stories caught my eye.

The first was about a woman who, while walking her dog, was accosted by a man who ran up and tried to grope her from behind.

The woman told police she was walking her dog when a man approached her from behind and tried to grab her genital area with both hands. However, the suspect was not successful and ran away, eventually heading south on Melrose Street, police said.

This is a "serial groper" as he has done this numerous times in the area.

The second, far more disgusting than even the first, was about a woman who saw a man having sex with a dog. This is a "crime against nature," a felony. The woman went to speak with the man and when she opened the door to his mobile home, she saw him attacking the dog.

The mixed-breed female was taken to a veterinarian, who recovered a DNA sample. The man was arrested after his DNA profile matched the sample recovered from the dog.

Yes, seriously, straight out of CSI.

So this leads me back to the first case of the woman groped while walking her dog. Turns out it could have been worse, at least for the dog she was walking!

US prison population is FALLING! Yes, this is news!

The number of Americans living under the correctional system fell to 1.6 million in 2010, according to recent government data. And yes, this is DOWN from 2009!

Check out the story on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/09/144904613/prison-population-sees-1st-drop-in-almost-40-years

Why is this news?

Because it NEVER happens in the US. In the US, imprisonment just goes up!

I see the top stories in the news and I simply sigh ...

See???

From CNN:

Iran sentences American to death in spy case

American Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, on trial in Iran for espionage, has been sentenced to death, Iran's Fars news agency reports. FULL STORY

• Ahmadinejad to meet Chavez on tour
• Colleague, family: Hekmati is not a spy
• Iran opens new nuclear enrichment site
• Zakaria: Iran weak, getting weaker

• Syrians mourn protesters amid tension
• Europe's debt crisis: No end in sight
• Key tax deductions left hanging
• Flip flops dumped at police stations  
• Excedrin, Bufferin included in recall
• New car and truck of year picked
• Paramedic accused of raping patient  
• Charlie Sheen: 'I'm not crazy any more'
• DC Metro riders go pantless  

 From CNN US:

• Giffords mark 1 year since shooting
• Poor, but feeding the rich
• Papa John's sorry for racial slur
• Outrage over 'racist' math problems
• Mass of birds swarm CA sky
• Crowds disrobe on NYC subway
• Tim Tebow: Another stunner

 From Fox:

• 

  Beyonce Baby 'Lockdown' Makes Some Parents Blue

  New, expecting parents say they were booted from hospital's neonatal unit so songstress could deliver Blue Ivy
  • Bill Requires Hollywood Pros to Be Checked Before Working With Kids
  • 'Dance Moms' Star Rips Parents

• Bill Requires Hollywood Pros to Be Checked Before Working With Kids
• 'Dance Moms' Star Rips Parents

• Giffords Leads Pledge at Vigil to Remember Victims
• Authorities Find Shoe in Search for Missing Teacher
• Good Samaritan Fighting For Life After Rescuing Drunken Man From N.Y. Train Tracks
• Gunman in Afghan Army Uniform Kills U.S. Soldier
• Texas Redistricting Case Goes to Supreme Court
• Officials: Bus That Crashed in Montana Went Too Fast
• Car Bombs Kill 14 in Iraq, Authorities Say
• Police: 13 Bodies Found at Gas Station in Mexico
• China Slams New U.S. Defense Strategy
• White House 'Wonderland' Bash Too Extravagant?
• Argentine President Didn't Have Cancer After All
• Soldiers on Lockdown After Military Equipment Stolen
• Jerry Sandusky's Autobiography Reportedly Led Police to Four Alleged Victims
• Tourist Survives Fall After Bungee Cord Snaps
• Gas Leak Found at Merchant Marine Academy
• Excedrin, Gas-X Recalled Over Broken Pill Concerns

First, there are LOTS of crime stories there.

Second, there are some seriously trivial or relatively unimportant stories there (remember, these are their top stories).

These two findings should not be surprising given the evidence discussed in the book.

Third, there are several important international stories being discussed. Given the relative lack of focus on these issues (as shown in the book), at least this is refreshing!

An interesting argument about the role of the media in capital punishment

I was searching Google news today and found this argument, posted only a couple of days ago, about our current system of capital punishment.

Interestingly, while this writer supports the death penalty, he agrees with me that the system of capital punishment is a "farce" (the very word I use to describe it, along with other "F" words). His problem is that he wants to kill them all and believes that institutions including the media interfere so that it is not possible.

If only we could push a button to kill them all!

 Here is the introduction:


In common parlance, "getting away with murder" is a metaphor for doing something wrong without suffering deserved adverse consequences.  Getting away with actual murder has meant that the killer did not get caught, or else he avoided conviction or appropriate punishment thanks to a good lawyer (often taking advantage of judge-concocted rules favoring guilty defendants).

In recent decades, however, getting away with murder has been infused with new meaning: purposeful government policy now grants murderers immunity from punishment for new crimes.
Out of thin air, a right has been officially and surreptitiously created exclusively for select previously convicted murderers: the right to commit, cost-free, further violence, and even further murders.  When judges, legislators, and governors make capital punishment impossible in willful defiance of great public support, they liberate those already serving life sentences to fearlessly perpetrate as many additional vicious crimes as they can because they face no greater penalty. 

This shocking reality, known to those few immersed in what passes for the criminal "justice" system, is covered up by our murderer-protective media.





____________________________________

So, see he blames the media for this. Read it, it's worth it.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/crime_without_punishment.html#ixzz1igW07qqg

Look at all the crime in the news today

Los Angeles Arson Suspect Needs Deputies' Help to Stand in Court BusinessWeek - ‎20 minutes ago‎ By Christopher Palmeri, Edvard Pettersson and Karin Matussek Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- A man accused of setting a series of fires that terrorized Los Angeles over New Year's weekend needed the help of deputies to stand at his first court appearance as new ...

1 officer dead, suspect wounded after Utah shooting

USA TODAY - ‎45 minutes ago‎

OGDEN, Utah (AP) - Gunfire erupted as anti-drug police served a search warrant in an Ogden neighborhood, fatally wounding one officer and injuring five other police and a suspect, authorities said.

 

Casey Anthony speaks out for the first time in video diary

msnbc.com - ‎13 minutes ago‎

By Michael Inbar While Casey Anthony sightings have been scarce in the six months since she was cleared of killing her toddler daughter Caylee, the 25-year-old has resurfaced in a video that she apparently recorded herself in October.

 

 _________________________

 

And of course there is this!

Woman Shoots Intruder During 911 Call

 (CBS)  Oklahoma resident Donna Jackson faced a life or death situation when an intruder tried to break into her rural-area home last Friday.

Home alone, but armed with a shotgun, 57-year-old Jackson called 911 and begged for help, but police couldn't get there before the man was able to break through a glass door with a chair and patio table.

Jackson, who stayed on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, can be heard in the call saying, "I don't want to have to kill this man, but I'll kill him graveyard dead, ma'am."

When the intruder broke through the door, Jackson dropped the phone. A minute later, Jackson was forced to shoot, and the suspect, Billy Riley, 53, was killed. According to the local district attorney's office, Jackson won't be charged with a crime. During the call, the 911 operator told Jackson it was legal for her to defend her home.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/12/09/earlyshow/main5949873.shtml

 _________________________

So, crime sells, right?

New laws for 2012

Every year brings new laws. Makes you wonder how we survived the previous year without them, doesn't it?

Here are some of the new laws in my state, North Carolina:

Starting Sunday, pharmacies will be required to enter customers into a national database when they want to buy cold medicine that contains pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in making methamphetamine. The database will block the sale if the person has gone on a buying spree for the drug.

Other new laws include one that means more criminals convicted of misdemeanors will be housed in county jails rather than in state prisons. It's part of a new policy approved by the Legislature with the goal of reducing correctional costs and recidivism.

New laws also mean changes to how teenagers in North Carolina get their licenses.
The law requires teenagers with a learner's permit will have to do a little more paperwork before moving on to the next step in the state's three-step graduated license program for adolescent drivers. The first log requires 60 hours of time behind the wheel under the supervision of a parent or other experienced driver. The second log, for Level 2 drivers, requires 12 additional hours. Signed copies of the logs have to be presented before moving to the next level.

http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/10549655/ 

And then there is this one:

State tax collector will have fewer powers to force corporations to redo their tax returns if they're suspected of dodging taxes.

Nice! Who is in power again?

http://www.wral.com/news/story/10540203/

Death penalty in North Carolina

In the news ...

BOONE -- My hope for the New Year is that lawmakers in North Carolina will finally find the courage to abolish the death penalty, a punishment rooted in politics rather than science, and simultaneously get serious about reducing crime.

Research in the state, summarized in my report "The Death Penalty in North Carolina: A Summary of the Data and Scientific Studies," shows that capital punishment is rare, ineffective, expensive, biased and imperfect. The only thing left to do now is acknowledge this and put an end to it.

For decades North Carolina was one of the leading death penalty states. We were one of the top 10 states in terms of the number of people we sentenced to death and executed in any given year. And yet our murder rate was also always above the national average.

In the past decade, this all changed as the practice of capital punishment in the state has faced serious challenges. We've seen problems with the quality of representation offered to defendants. We've discovered that innocent people have been convicted and sentenced to death. And we've seen clear evidence of racial bias.

The good news is that the state has taken steps to address each of these problems.

First, the Office of Indigent Services was created in 2000 to reduce the representation of capital defendants by unqualified and inexperienced defense attorneys. Second, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission was established in 2006 to investigate and evaluate post-conviction claims of factual innocence. And in 2009, the state passed the Racial Justice Act, which bans racial discrimination in the death penalty and corrects for it by setting aside death sentences in cases where race "is shown to have been a significant factor" in seeking or imposing the death penalty.

The General Assembly recently repealed this law, but the governor vetoed the repeal; only a three-fifths vote by legislators will override the veto.

The bad news is that all our efforts to correct for the problems of the death penalty in our state amount to what former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun called "tinkering with the machinery of death." The result is a freakishly rare system of capital punishment that requires taxpayers to spend tens of millions of dollars to maintain but not actually use.

North Carolina courts now hand out only about three death sentences a year, and the state has not executed anyone since August 2006 because of unresolved disputes over the lethal injection process.

When Justice Blackmun said he would no longer tinker with the machinery of death in 1994, he added: "For more than 20 years I have endeavored ... to develop ... rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor ... I feel ... obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed. It is virtually self-evident to me now that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiencies."

Ironically, Blackmun was one of the jurists who dissented in the 1987 case, McCleskey v. Kemp, which rejected the appeal of Warren McCleskey, whose attorneys showed that killers of whites (and especially black killers of whites) were more likely to be sentenced to death in Georgia; this is the reality of capital punishment in North Carolina today.

That ruling gave us the impossible-to-prove standard that individuals must be able to show that state officials discriminated against them as individuals in order to overturn a death sentence; this is the standard Republican legislators want to return to by striking down the Racial Justice Act.

Whereas it's too late for Blackmun, it's not too late for North Carolina. Our own experience over the past decade proves that we can live without the death penalty.

As death sentences declined in North Carolina in what was the greatest overall reduction in death sentences in the country in the first decade of the 21st century, the murder rate also fell. In 2000, the state's murder rate ranked it eighth in the nation; by 2010, the state's murder rate was the lowest level in our recorded history and was down to 15th in the nation.

We now have all the facts.

The only thing standing in the way of abolition is a lack of courage. May this be the year we finally do the right thing and kill the death penalty. In its place, let's get serious about reducing crime by pursuing strategies rooted in science that are proven to work.

 

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/01/02/1743006/evidence-against-the-death-penalty.html

Blog will be back, active again, in early January

Happy holidays again.

Traveling so enjoy your time away from all the nonsense and negativity in the news!

Happy Holidays!

Top rated TV shows???

It is still sports, CRIME, and trivial stuff.

See?

http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/top10s/television.html

So the drug war works then?

As the FBI released its national crime statistics for the first half of 2011 on Monday, showing violent crime and property crime down across the board, a group of anthropologists at City University of New York floated a theory for the ongoing crime reduction in New York that they extrapolated nationally: Crime is falling because drugs are getting cheaper. In short, the thinking goes that most crime is drug-related in general, usually committed by users to pay for their fix. So if drugs are cheaper, users will commit fewer crimes to buy them.

http://news.yahoo.com/reagans-war-drugs-reduced-crime-unexpected-way-134745710.html

The problem, of course, is that one of the goals of the drug war is to RAISE prices of drugs, thereby making them harder to afford, so that--in the words of the Office of National Drug Control Policy--people who are using drugs will stop using them and those not using them will be less likely to start using drugs in the first place!

This article makes Ronald Reagan, who stepped up the war on drugs in 1980s, seem like a genius. Step up a policy that will fail to achieve its goals but will reduce crime anyway!

Police as soldiers and Americans detained without trial ....

“With local law enforcement, their mission is to solve crimes after they’ve happened, and to ensure that people’s constitutional rights are protected in the process,” says Jesselyn McCurdy, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “The military obviously has a mission where they are fighting an enemy. When you use military tactics in the context of law enforcement, the missions don’t match, and that’s when you see trouble with the overmilitarization of police.”

http://news.yahoo.com/cops-ready-war-094500010.html 

 

Americans can also now be detained as enemies in military custody indefinitely without trial as long as there is a war on terror. Something is wrong with our country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/15/americans-face-guantanamo-detention-obama  

Yes, it's been in the news. But for some reason, we just don't seem concerned at all. Even though on the campaign trail in 2007, now President Obama said "We're not a nation that locks people up without charging them." Except now we are. Because he signed the bill into law.

Stories NOT being told in the mainstream press

Why a Constitutional Law Professor Should Not Sign an Unconstitutional Military Detention Bill

Ralph Lopez, War Is A Crime

The War on Drug Addicts - and Everyone Else

Maya Schenwar, Truthout

New Documents Released of 2007 Iraq Atrocity by Troops

David Swanson, War Is A Crime.org

How Now, Brown Cloud: What Smog Hath Wrought

Michael Winship, Truthout

Group Challenges CIA's Worldwide 'Targeted Killing' Campaign

 

 

'Craigslist Killer' Case Highlights the Plight of America's Jobless

 

Israel Forms Corps for Strategic Strikes

 

Secret US, Taliban Talks Indicate Slow Road to Peace

 

Will this crime be in the news?

Violent? Check!

Check!

Bizarre? Check!

Innocent victim? Check!

Man who looks depraved or crazy? Check!

Is the offender a black male? Check!

Yes, then it will be in the news.

http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-nyc-womans-burning-appears-court-180131954.html

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

ONE out of every THREE young people is a criminal?

Yes, according to this article from Reuters:

Close to one in three teens and young adults get arrested by age 23, suggests a new study that finds more of them are being booked now than in the 1960s.

Those arrests are for everything from underage drinking and petty theft to violent crime, researchers said.
They added that the increase might not necessarily reflect more criminal behavior in youth, but rather a police force that's more apt to arrest young people than in the past.

"The vast majority of these kids will never be arrested again," said John Paul Wright, who studies juvenile delinquency at the University of Cincinnati's Institute of Crime Science, but wasn't involved in the new study.

"The real serious ones are embedded in the bigger population of kids who are just picking up one arrest," he told Reuters Health.

Though violent crimes might be on the rarer end of the spectrum of offenses, the study's lead author pointed to the importance of catching the early warning signs of criminal behavior in adolescents and young adults, saying that pediatricians and parents can both play a role in turning those youngsters around.

Robert Brame of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and his colleagues analyzed data from a nationally-representative youth survey conducted between 1997 and 2008.

A group of more than 7,000 adolescents age 12 to 16 in the study's first year filled out the annual surveys with questions including if and when they had ever been arrested.

At age 12, less than one percent of participants who responded had been arrested. By the time they were 23, that climbed to 30 percent with a history of arrest.

That compares to an estimated 22 percent of young adults who had been arrested in 1965, from a past study.

"It was certainly higher than we expected based on what we saw in the 1960s, but it wasn't dramatically higher," said Brame.

Arrests in adolescents are especially worrisome, he told Reuters Health, because many repeat offenders start their "criminal career" at a young age.

The researchers said it seems that the criminal justice system has taken to arresting both the young and old more than it did in the past, when fines and citations might have been given to some people who are now arrested.

"If (police) find kids that are intoxicated or they have pulled over someone intoxicated... now, nine times out of 10 they're going to make an arrest," Wright told Reuters Health.

"We do have to question if arrest is an appropriate intervention in all circumstances, or if we need to rethink some of the policies we have enacted."

He pointed out that young people who have an arrest on their record might have more trouble getting jobs in the future. It's one thing if that's because they were involved in a violent crime, he continued, but another if their offence was non-violent, like drinking underage or smoking marijuana.

"Arrest does have major social implications for people as they transition from adolescence to adulthood," Wright said.

While the report didn't ask youth why they had been arrested, Brame said that common offenses in that age group also include stealing, vandalizing and arson.

For most minor offenses, teens and young adults will get a term of probation or another minor penalty, he said. The most serious adolescent offenders and those with a prior record could be prosecuted as adults and end up getting a prison sentence.

Brame said that being poor, struggling in school and having a difficult home life have all been linked to a higher risk of arrest in that age group.

He and his colleagues wrote in Pediatrics on Monday that other warning signs of delinquent behavior include early instances of aggression and bullying, hyperactivity and delayed development.

Pediatricians might be able to recognize those warning signs more clearly than parents, and can point kids toward resources to help keep them out of trouble, such as counseling services, Brame said.

"We urge that parents who are concerned about their kids' well-being, that they get those kids in to see a pediatrician on a regular basis so the pediatrician can do the things they're trained to do.

____________________________

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/19/us-arrests-idUSTRE7BI0SK20111219

This is all well and good. But what the article and the researchers do not point out is that virtually EVERYONE breaks the law, even intentionally. The fact is that we are ALL criminals. But only SOME get arrested.

So, why is that? There is no answer in this article, so it appears this is another example of the media failing to report the real story.

Here are the facts: Everyone commits crime. Some start earlier (early childhood), but most start later (adolescence). Some persist in crime over their entire lives, but most only commit crimes during adolescence and early adulthood and then mature out of it. Those that start earlier and persist in crime over their lives are different than the rest of us. And those people commit the vast majority of crime in society every year.

If anyone needs to be arrested, it is them. But arrest will not solve the problem of those offenders. Only early intervention can help. Only that is not happening. And that should be the story.

Remember Casey Anthony?

Would you pay this woman $750,000 for an interview to hear her tell you how she did NOT kill her daughter?

I wonder how much the woman on the left wants to talk about what she remembers from the night she partied with this murderer?

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/casey-anthony-750-000-interview-deny-baby-murder-article-1.991834?localLinksEnabled=false

Perdue veto saves death-row appeal law

From the Raleigh News and Observer:

An attempt by the state's district attorneys, backed by Republican lawmakers, to derail North Carolina's two-year-old law allowing statistical evidence of racial bias to overturn death sentences appears to have failed with the governor's veto of their bill Wednesday.

Governor Perdue vetoed SB 9, which had overturned the state's historic Racial Justice Act, passed just in 2009.

... there appears to be little chance of that this time. House Republicans would have to lure five Democrats to muster the 72 votes necessary for the three-fifths margin.

Although five conservative Democrats broke ranks with their party on other issues this year, one of them, Rep. Bill Owens from Elizabeth City, said Wednesday he will not vote for an override. Another, Rep. Jim Crawford from Oxford, said he probably won't, and a third, Rep. Dewey Hill from Brunswick County, said he doesn't know.

Without those five votes, Republican leaders would have to look for an opportunity to spring an override vote on a day when not enough Democrats show up for a session, which House Speaker Thom Tillis has said is a possibility.

In response to a public records request from The News & Observer, the governor's office on Wednesday released some of the correspondence the office has received on the issue since the beginning of November. Of the nearly 300 emails and eight letters provided, all but four urged Perdue to veto the bill.

 

So it was NOT even close. Thus, what Perdue did is supported by the public.

 

And her reason?

"I am vetoing Senate Bill 9 for the same reason that I signed the Racial Justice Act two years ago: It is simply unacceptable for racial prejudice to play a role in the imposition of the death penalty in North Carolina."

 

Amen!

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/12/15/1711801/perdue-veto-saves-death-row-appeal.html#ixzz1gc6IBggw

In the news today ...

So, did you see that crime and disaster are in the news today?

And these are just from ONE news channel:

Sandusky waives preliminary hearing
Occupy protesters disrupt ports
Violence flares across Iraq
15 children killed in China bus crash
4 killed when 2 Army copters collide
Three arrested in FAMU student beating
Xavier-Cincinnati brawl players 'sorry'

Rutgers suicide victim remembered
Body identified as missing mother of 4
Man films own shooting on iPhone  
Home video catches holiday crook   
Sinkhole opens under driver  


Nick Nolte: It wasn't a mug shot 
Officers killed in line of duty up in 2011

Seriously, they would have you believe there is ONLY bad news in the world. Every single day.

Basic math. Which is bigger? $20 billion or $7.777 trillion?

So everyday you hear about street crime. It is clearly in the news. Everyday.

But rarely do you see this kind of story in the news, especially the mainstream news.

The Federal Reserve was FORCED to reveal this to us--it loaned $7.77 trillion in below-market dollars to rescuing the financial system, and these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.

 

So how many years worth of street crime does $7.77 trillion worth? At about $20 billion per year in direct losses to street crime, this one deal cost us something like 388 years worth of street crime.

And yet, this is NOT the main story in the corporate news.

This is relevant to the issues in the book of who makes the law, who funds the law, and why it matters.

We are' simply stated, a nation obsessed with street crime. Simultaneously, we ignore white-collar and corporate crime, even though it costs us so much more every year than street crime.

 

 

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine

Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis

On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion in below-market loans»

http://www.truth-out.org/pulling-back-curtain-wall-street-money-machine/1323372283

Oh brother, NOT again. And NOT there.

• AP

  Shooting on Virginia Tech Campus Leaves 2 Dead, Suspect on Loose

  URGENT: Police at Virginia Tech investigate scene of shooting that left at least two people dead -- including a police officer -- as authorities search campus for what appears to be a lone gunman. | PHOTOS
• VIDEO: Student Reacts to Reports of Shooting | FLASHBACK: April 16, 2007 -- Gunman Kills 32, Self at Virginia Tech

2 dead at Virginia Tech | LIVE: WSLS 


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/virginia-tech-shooting-dead-police-officer.html

How young is too young to be tried as an adult?

My wife sent me this story today. its certainly not the top story of the day, but it is out there. And it is a recurrent issue in criminal justice.

A 12-year-old boy could spend life in prison when he is tried as an adult for the murder of his two-year-old brother.

Cristian Fernandez is the youngest person ever to be charged with first-degree murder in the city of Jacksonville. Prosecutors say the pre-teen "acted with premeditation" when he allegedly shoved his two-year-old brother into a bookshelf, leaving the boy with a fractured skull and internal bleeding to the brain, CBS reports.

The younger boy, David, died two days after the March incident.

So, he SHOVED his brother. He did NOT try to kill him. He SHOVED him. Which of course kids do all the time.

Find the murderer.

"Yes, I have compassion for Cristian Fernandez , but it's not my job to forgive, it's my job to follow the law," prosecutor Angela Corey recently told Fox News.

The prosecution did offer a plea deal that would have freed Fernandez on his twenty-first birthday.

Defense attorneys did not accept, however, on the basis that Fernandez would be forced to admit murder and likely serve the final three years of his sentence in an adult prison, according to the Florida Times-Union.

So, this is plea bargaining at work. Take the deal and admit to being a murderer, and you get nine years. Don't take the deal and lose at trial and you go to prison FOREVER.

A trial is set for Feb. 27, 2012.

Ferandez's mother, 25-year-old Biannela Susana, also faces aggravated manslaughter and culpable negligence charges relating to the incident. Prosecutors say Biannela, who gave birth to Fernandez when she was 12-years-old, first informed cops that her younger son injured himself in a fall.

So, when is too young to be tried as an adult? You can vote at age 18, serve your country at 18, but work at 16 and cannot drink until 21. Keep in mind that the latest brain research suggests your brain is not fully developed until on average about age 25 years.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/cristian-fernandez-case_n_1132106.html?ncid=webmail6

Do law-makers support the people?

This is one of the questions asked in the book.

One way to find out is to see how they vote on issues that Americans support.

A recent Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans--including both Democrats and Republicans--support closing tax loopholes on corporations or raising taxes on millionaires to help pay for things like schools, bridges, roads, etc.

And this was part of Obama's jobs plan.

Yet, so far, Congress has not acted (well, other than to vote no on every plan submitted by the President).

In this news analysis, Truthout, features the group, Patriot Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, who is calling on Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire once and for all, and return the top marginal tax rate back to the Clinton-era levels. You know, back to when the economy was booming.

.

According to the National Priorities Project and Citizens for Tax Justice, the first decade of the Bush tax cuts, from 2001 to 2010, cost $955 billion; the Obama extension, from 2011 - 2012, cost $229 billion; the proposed extension, from 2013 to 2021, would cost $2.02 trillion; the total cost is $3.2 trillion.

Tax cuts for the wealthy have NOT spurred economic growth, but have instead just added trillions to the national debt. People know this, so they are calling on Congress to act.

So far, they refuse. So, it is fair to say that this is one example of law-makers NOT supporting the people.

• News Analysis»
  

  Patriot Millionaires: Let the Bush Tax Cuts Expire Once and for All

Sexual harassment by little boys?

From Fox News:

Boy, 9, Suspended from School for Sexual Harassment After Calling Teacher 'Cute'

A 9-year-old boy North Carolina boy was suspended for calling a teacher “cute,” WSOCTV.com reports.

The boy’s mother, Chiquita Lockett, said the principal of Brookside Elementary in Gastonia called her after the incident to say the comment was a form of “sexual harassment.”

"It's not like he went up to the woman and tried to grab her or touch her in a sexual way," Lockett said. "So why would he be suspended for two days?”

A 9-year old boy tells this to his teacher. And that is sexual harassment.

According to the station, a district spokeswoman said she could not go into detail, but said the boy was suspended for "inappropriate behavior" after making "inappropriate statements."

The district's Code of Conduct doesn't list "inappropriate behavior," but says "disruption of school" is punishable by five days of out-of-school suspension.

The news of the North Carolina boy’s suspension comes as a Massachusetts elementary school is investigating a first-grader for sexual harassment after the boy struck another boy his age in the groin.

The mother of the accused 7-year-old tells the Boston Globe that her son was fending off another child, who had choked him in an altercation on the school bus on Nov. 22.

“I think my kid was right to fight back,’’ said the mother, Tasha Lynch, 30. “He wasn’t doing anything except protecting himself.’’

Lynch says her son has been afraid to return to Tynan Elementary School in South Boston since the fight, according to the paper.

Matthew Wilder, spokesman for the Boston public schools, declined to comment on the incident or why it has been classified as a possible case of sexual harassment. He said officials do not discuss confidential student information.

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As a parent of a boy, this concerns me greatly. Both of these stories do actually. I mean, at what age should I start teaching my son about sexual harassment? Before I do this I first I have to teach him about sex, don't I?

However you feel about these cases, notice how the media linked two unrelated stories together. That is linkage. It is the hook they use to get you to read on. Thank goodness they at least did not link it to the coaching scandals at Penn State and Syracuse! Or Herman Cain!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/04/boy-suspended-from-school-for-sexual-harassment-after-calling-teacher-cute/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ffZ1iXth

US government gave $7.7 TRILLION to big banks!

And only Jon Stewart is talking about it?

Check out his segment, "How the F#@K is it that Martha Stewart Went to Jail?"

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-1-2011/america-s-next-tarp-model

You know how the media can literally IGNORE a story?

This is what it looks like.

 

Time magazine is literally sheltering Americans from the news around the world. Even though we know what is going on (well, those of us who actually read the news online).

Of course, this is the same news magazine that made OJ Simpson look "blacker" because they thought it would make him look more menacing to readers.

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